4.Â Further Reading

There are many sources of information about FreeBSD; some are
included with this distribution, while others are available
on-line or in print versions.

4.1.Â Release Documentation

A number of other files provide more specific information
about this snapshot distribution. These files are
provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
both ASCII text (.TXT) and HTML
(.HTM) renditions. Some distributions
may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
(.PDF).

README.TXT: This file, which
gives some general information about FreeBSD as well as
some cursory notes about obtaining a
distribution.

RELNOTES.TXT: The release
notes, showing what's new and different in FreeBSD
11.0-CURRENT compared to the previous release (FreeBSD
10.0-RELEASE).

HARDWARE.TXT: The hardware
compatibility list, showing devices with which FreeBSD has
been tested and is known to work.

ERRATA.TXT: Release errata.
Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
this file, which is principally applicable to releases
(as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
this file before installing a release of FreeBSD, as it
contains the latest information on problems which have
been found and fixed since the release was
created.

On platforms that support bsdinstall(8) (currently
amd64, i386, pc98, and sparc64), these documents are generally available via the
Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is
installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the
bsdinstall(8) utility.

Note:

It is extremely important to read the errata for any
given release before installing it, to learn about any
“late-breaking news” or post-release problems.
The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right
next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but
other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be
consulted as the “current errata” for this
release. These other copies of the errata are located at
../../../../releases/ (as
well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this
location).

4.2.Â Manual Pages

As with almost all UNIXÂ® like operating systems, FreeBSD comes
with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the
man(1) command or through the hypertext manual
pages gateway on the FreeBSD Web site. In general, the
manual pages provide information on the different commands and
APIs available to the FreeBSD user.

In some cases, manual pages are written to give
information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
manual pages are tuning(7) (a guide to performance tuning),
security(7) (an introduction to FreeBSD security), and
style(9) (a style guide to kernel coding).

4.3.Â Books and Articles

Two highly-useful collections of FreeBSD-related information,
maintained by the FreeBSD Project,
are the FreeBSD Handbook and FreeBSD FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions document). On-line versions of the Handbook
and FAQ
are always available from the FreeBSD Documentation
page or its mirrors. If you install the
doc distribution set, you can use a Web
browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
installing FreeBSD.

A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
the FreeBSD Project, cover more-specialized, FreeBSD-related topics.
This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
of the mailing lists, to dual-booting FreeBSD with other
operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the FreeBSD
Documentation Page or in the doc
distribution set.

A listing of other books and documents about FreeBSD can be
found in the bibliography
of the FreeBSD Handbook. Because of FreeBSD's strong UNIXÂ® heritage,
many other articles and books written for UNIXÂ® systems are
applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
bibliography.